Let's Discuss Crusader!

[ekf 88]

I often see it ranked pretty low among the hulls, but Crusader's OD is a lot of fun IMO. It works very well with long ranged turrets, with the OD and the mouse controls.

[Wry 93]

Imo, Crusader is the most OP Hull in the game, its small volume compared to other medium hulls is just unbalanced even compared to light hulls, due that it can easily strafe and make small accurate movement better than any hovering hull while being harder to hit plus the 3000HP. It has higher power (900) than Hopper (800) which plus its compact shape and higher weight makes it much more stable (less affected by impact force and recoil) and more fluid in movements. For some reason Crusader has higher Reverse acceleration (20) than Paladin (18) despite them both being medium hulls, not only Paladin but it is higher than Wasp (18) and Hunter (18), which makes Crusader not only more responsive to change in movements but also more fluid due to its small volume and the ability to strafe. The volume, weight and the power of the tank are always in a direct relationship. For example, Dictator having higher weight (3600) and power (1700) than other medium hulls due to its higher volume. But for some reason despite Crusader being clearly smaller than Paladin they both have the same weight of 2300 and power of 900, this does not mean that both Paladin and Crusader have the same stability even though the numbers say so, because the shape of the tank also plays a role in its stability not only the weight of it, which means that Crusader is more stable and more fluid in movements than Paladin because of its compact shape.

 

Volume alongside speed were always the criteria in deciding whether a hull is light, medium or heavy, but it is not the case for Crusader. I don't think Crusader was designed with the idea of it being a medium hull, because no parameters of it indicate that it is indeed a medium hull, it is just numbers being randomly thrown without a clear vision or reasoning behind it.

Edited January 28 by Wry

[JustBlackWolf 875]

Really curious of others opinions.

[Nuclear 126]

I don't think that the shape has anything to do with it.

The reason why the Crusader is better (or lets call it the most OP hull) is because its control.

Meanwhile the hopper and paladin controlled by the hull's position, the crusader and ares controlled by the camera position which makes it much easier to play with it.

[Wry 93]

On 1/28/2025 at 11:39 AM, Nuclear said:

I don't think that the shape has anything to do with it.

The reason why the Crusader is better (or lets call it the most OP hull) is because its control.

Meanwhile the hopper and paladin controlled by the hull's position, the crusader and ares controlled by the camera position which makes it much easier to play with it.

Shape and other parameters I mentioned have everything to do with it. It is better and easier to drive Crusader because of its small shape, it means that it wont hit obstacles that you would hit with another hull. Driving small cars is always easier than driving big ones. Controlling a 3m of volume is always easier than controlling a 4m or 5m of volume. Therefore, Crusader has smoother/better experience to control/drive. 

This is without talking about the benefit of having smaller hitbox which is crucial in any kind of design in competitive games, while being a 3000HP hull. Crusader literally have less length than hopper the light hull.

[Hypersomnia 1,695]

all flying hulls are flawed. 

they were made purposely more overpowered ( tryhards... just stop defending pls.) because they were suppose to be in a version with completely different and harder controls. just for that version to flop and be given up on. for some reason flying hull is left unchanged without minor secret changes because of all the crying any meaningful change brings. it's basically the appendix of this game right now. 

 

remove them and the game gets 5 times healthier even if everything else is unchanged.

the only reason they're still not removed is due to fragile ego buyers who are only carried by OP toys and try to squeeze as much OPness as possible.

[Wry 93]

On 1/28/2025 at 3:43 PM, Hypersomnia said:

all flying hulls are flawed. 

 

This is true to some extent, but for me Crusader is just the extreme of them all.

[WALLE 1]

Armenian radio replies: If one hull has smaller volume and higher mass that other, it is just more dense

Edited January 28 by WALLE
grammar

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

Throughout the years I've hardly had a problem using projectile turrets against Crusaders. I have always had it against Paladins. Besides the AP on the OD at the time, part of the reason I hated fighting Paladins was because I knew that my accuracy wouldn't be high against them. My projectiles would seemingly phase through them on multiple turrets, not just Smoky. Thunder, Striker, Ricochet, Gauss, Vulcan.

All of them were missing shots on Paladins that I didn't have a problem with Crusader. Crusader Icicles apparently were supposed to be a prime counter to Paladin ODs yet my Icicles phase through Paladins quite often. If it didn't phase then it most likely would still directly impact them and only do 1,000 instead of 4,000. This was made even worse if they were using Crisis or Trickster. 

On 1/28/2025 at 4:54 AM, Wry said:

Crusader literally have less length than hopper the light hull.

Source? That doesn't sound or look right. 

[Wry 93]

On 1/29/2025 at 1:57 AM, TheCongoSpider said:

My projectiles would seemingly phase through them on multiple turrets, not just Smoky. Thunder, Striker, Ricochet, Gauss, Vulcan.

All of them were missing shots on Paladins that I didn't have a problem with Crusader.

Well my point is discussing hulls in theory without the randomness factor such as your point, because if we talk about other implementations and bugs we won't reach a solid point based on numbers. Based on that argument Crusader should not be easier to deal with in vast situations and scenarios than Paladin. The point you mentioned about Paladin, I think it is a bugged implementation of the autoaim mechanic. Why does it seem hypothetically to happen to Paladin more than other hulls? Can't say for sure it could be due to a lot of reasons contributing to this, it could be ping, servers, or Paladin as a design is not optimized well enough for the autoaim mechanism and vice versa, since it is a bit thinner in size (Paladin feels more compressed, you can notice that by looking at Paladin's side profile) than other hovering hulls, so that could be the reason autoaim can't catch Paladin's hitbox sometimes.

On 1/29/2025 at 1:57 AM, TheCongoSpider said:

Source? That doesn't sound or look right. 

If we bring someone who has no knowledge about light or medium hulls, but we explained to him that based on the volume of the tank you can judge whether it is a light one or a medium one, and by looking at each tank side profile (just take screenshot of each one in the garage and compare). Now, after we tell him that one of the two tanks (Hopper and Crusader) is a medium hull and the other one is a light hull, I bet he wont be able to tell the difference between Hopper and Crusader. Of course you can argue about other sides and the mass/weight (in-game garage it is mass but in wiki it is weight), but this is not the point, the point is a medium sized hull should be a medium sized hull with a clear increase in size in comparison to light hulls. It is not called a medium hull or light hull based on just speed but also the volume, because size/volume affects the speed of it. It is common sense.

Edited January 29 by Wry

[Wry 93]

On 1/27/2025 at 8:07 PM, Wry said:

I don't think Crusader was designed with the idea of it being a medium hull

I just read the description of Crusader found both in Wiki and In-game garage. Which state the following: "Medium hovering hull. It is characterized by good passability and a compact silhouette The «Crusader» hull belongs to the second generation of hovertanks. To create a compact but powerful hull with attacking possibilities, a lot of ingenious solutions were used. Compactness of the second generation anti-grav allowed engineers to equip enough armor to the tank for it to be a medium hull without decreasing its speed.

Just by looking at the bold words you can notice that they (the Devs) had no clear vision or reasoning behind the design of Crusader or enough understanding of what makes a hull medium or light. It feels they just designed Crusader with advantages of both medium hulls (3000hp) and light hulls (Compact and "good passability"). Why would Crusader has features that are exclusive to light hulls while being a medium one?

Edited January 29 by Wry

[Tekken 374]

I have to say that I agree with statement hover hulls are clearly superior than track hulls,  majority of "try hards" usually plays them (crusader as number one option) unless they are not playing specific augment for specific hull, like dictator with twins PTA because of OD. 

Hover hulls imo have more than 1 great advantage over track hulls and thus require to be balanced in order for track hull to not get left behind. 

Avantages over track hulls - 

 1. Hover hulls got recently buff and its now very hard to flip them upside down. (even by enemy shots or impact force) 

       this is very good advantage when you need to get to the opposite side of map with flag or just quickly move to support your team,  difference is even more visible on uneven surfaces, Here is a good example - lets say I have situation with  hopper and wasp/hornet on highways map, now I steal flag with any of these hulls, which of them most likely deliver flag ? I can easily jump off from their base with hopper not being afraid of fliping myself by accident or enemy impact force , accelerate or change trajectory in midair and choose best path to deliver it without many interruptions. Track hulls usually lost all their speed as soon as they lose contact with ground and they have to accelerate to their full speed again, which is making them terrible choice on uneven surfaces (maps with full of ramps, or hills) 

2. They can dodge way more shots by strafing and thus make themself survive more. 

3. Impact force is way better absorbed than by track hulls.  

4.  You can maneuver, accelerate or stop moving with them in midair  which is super OP. 

5.  You can easily to get through narrow ways to reach otherwise unreachable spots or make your way to enemy base safer with option to avoid lot of mines etc... 

    Best example here - Berlin  in the middle of map is trench  and  from one side there is at the  narrow passage where you can manage to get to the opposite side but its mostly possible only for hover hulls

      Another good example could be Cologne - there are two narrow passages on the sides of map that are elevated and connected to the castle walls and you can  pass there only with hover hulls (yes its possible with light hulls and even maybe hornet but you will most likely flip or die because it will take too much time)   

I am sure there are more examples than this and it clearly is another good advantage over track hulls which will usually flip or get stuck. 

Cologne Hunter clip

Cologne Crusader clip

Berlin narrow passage clip

6. Better balance on edges, sometimes there are situations where in order to kill enemy you have to move your tank at the edge of surface so you can reach good angle for your vertical autoaim to highlight enemy, usually my experience is that with hover hulls this is way more safer to do than with track hulls. 

       

   Crusader  first of all, its probably best hover hull (and very likely best hull in game and with recent indirect OD buff, that can now kill mammoth with activated OD, even better) and if we sort them by maneuverability there is no contest,  crusader have imo another good feature that other hulls does not have and its leaning.  It almost does not lean forward or backward which is for many of the augments in game only good option. Examples ? 

 New rico resonator augment is best suited with crusader, not only you can easily dodge enemy projectiles by crusader design, you have better chances to hit them with crusader because how weird autoaim on resonator is.

Thunder nanotech - no vertical autoaim on allies making it very difficult to use in motion, you can easily prevent this (in my opinion good) disadvantage by crusader. 

Isida sustainable nanobots - very hard to use in motion as well due to poor cone angle - easily fixed by crusader. 

This 3 augments are  probably best examples that highlight how helpfull  it can be, but there are certainly lot of other good augment that clearly can benefit from this feature as well, ability to shot  directly in motion no matter if your autoaim is highlighting enemy or not is very handy. 

 

This is it, I am sure there is definitely more advantages that I mentioned so It would be more than fair to finally do something with this terrible balance in game.  Dictator/Titan and Mammoth OD are screaming for buff/change , blasters are clearly killing meele range meta and every "pro" use crusader because how easy mode it is. 

Edited January 29 by Tekken8

[Hypersomnia 1,695]

On 1/29/2025 at 6:26 PM, Tekken8 said:

This is it, I am sure there is definitely more advantages that I mentioned so It would be more than fair to finally do something with this terrible balance in game.  Dictator/Titan and Mammoth OD are screaming for buff/change , blasters are clearly killing meele range meta and every "pro" use crusader because how easy mode it is. 

Said many time that the biggest problem in this game currently is not 'overpowered' augments or something else but it's flying monkey.

remove that trash and the game gets 50 times more balanced than if you removed for example all augments instead. There is a reason why you barely see flying monkey users in festive modes that require 1% more thinking than normal MM match. I'm not even going to touch the 'pros" lol if you find one of these tryhards i'll personally send you 10k dollars.

 

speaking of these tryhards where are they gone all of a sudden? they don't even try to defend their non sense with completely empty defenses like calling anyone who calls out flying monkey a "noob" etc.? Huh... sad.

[Wry 93]

On 1/29/2025 at 7:26 PM, Tekken8 said:

 

What players do not seem to understand about hovering hulls is that their physical shape/size is actually smaller in size than their Visual shape. You can notice that by hitting any obstacles with a hovering hull and you will see a part of it just went through/in the obstacle, which add a lot to their maneuverability. Unlike tracked hulls their physical size is 1:1 to their Visual size. which is funny considering this game has its own design team who spend a lot of time perfecting the game engine visually, but they stumbled on this rookie mistake that existed for far too long.

Crusader
Paladin
 

Edited January 29 by Wry

[Tekken 374]

On 1/29/2025 at 5:58 PM, Hypersomnia said:

Said many time that the biggest problem in this game currently is not 'overpowered' augments or something else but it's flying monkey.

remove that trash and the game gets 50 times more balanced than if you removed for example all augments instead. There is a reason why you barely see flying monkey users in festive modes that require 1% more thinking than normal MM match. I'm not even going to touch the 'pros" lol if you find one of these tryhards i'll personally send you 10k dollars.

 

speaking of these tryhards where are they gone all of a sudden? they don't even try to defend their non sense with completely empty defenses like calling anyone who calls out flying monkey a "noob" etc.? Huh... sad.

I think removing them would make game a little boring, more fair? definitely, but thats probably radical solution, I would definitely nerf sideways acceleration and maximum sideways  speed by 50 % so its not so easy to strafe and dodge shots , also I would revert recent change so they can be flipped easily in midair,  then I would definitelly changed mammoth OD so it can again destroy icicle from crusader, and lastly reduce their weight so impact force would knock their aim more than track hulls, it does not make sense how track hulls that are on ground are knocked of more than something thats levitating in air without any physical terrain to stop them.  Some of the differences are good to have but it should not be way superior to track hulls.. thats just lame and almost non existent game balance (is it on purpose ?)

On 1/29/2025 at 5:58 PM, Wry said:

What players do not seem to understand about hovering hulls is that their physical shape/size is actually smaller in size than their Visual shape. You can notice than by hitting any obstacles with a hovering hull and you will see a part of it just went through/in the obstacle, which add a lot to their maneuverability. Unlike tracked hulls their physical size is 1:1 to their Visual size. which is funny considering this game has its own design team who spend a lot of time perfecting the game engine visually, but they stumbled on this rookie mistake that existed for far too long.

Crusader
Paladin
 

Great point, I forgot this one, in fact crusader an paladin hitbox  is almost same and its rectangle.   

[Cleric 1,385]

On 1/30/2025 at 12:26 AM, Tekken8 said:

I have to say that I agree with statement hover hulls are clearly superior than track hulls,  majority of "try hards" usually plays them (crusader as number one option) unless they are not playing specific augment for specific hull, like dictator with twins PTA because of OD. 

Hover hulls imo have more than 1 great advantage over track hulls and thus require to be balanced in order for track hull to not get left behind. 

Avantages over track hulls - 

 1. Hover hulls got recently buff and its now very hard to flip them upside down. (even by enemy shots or impact force) 

       this is very good advantage when you need to get to the opposite side of map with flag or just quickly move to support your team,  difference is even more visible on uneven surfaces, Here is a good example - lets say I have situation with  hopper and wasp/hornet on highways map, now I steal flag with any of these hulls, which of them most likely deliver flag ? I can easily jump off from their base with hopper not being afraid of fliping myself by accident or enemy impact force , accelerate or change trajectory in midair and choose best path to deliver it without many interruptions. Track hulls usually lost all their speed as soon as they lose contact with ground and they have to accelerate to their full speed again, which is making them terrible choice on uneven surfaces (maps with full of ramps, or hills) 

2. They can dodge way more shots by strafing and thus make themself survive more. 

3. Impact force is way better absorbed than by track hulls.  

4.  You can maneuver, accelerate or stop moving with them in midair  which is super OP. 

5.  You can easily to get through narrow ways to reach otherwise unreachable spots or make your way to enemy base safer with option to avoid lot of mines etc... 

    Best example here - Berlin  in the middle of map is trench  and  from one side there is at the  narrow passage where you can manage to get to the opposite side but its mostly possible only for hover hulls

      Another good example could be Cologne - there are two narrow passages on the sides of map that are elevated and connected to the castle walls and you can  pass there only with hover hulls (yes its possible with light hulls and even maybe hornet but you will most likely flip or die because it will take too much time)   

I am sure there are more examples than this and it clearly is another good advantage over track hulls which will usually flip or get stuck. 

Cologne Hunter clip

Cologne Crusader clip

Berlin narrow passage clip

6. Better balance on edges, sometimes there are situations where in order to kill enemy you have to move your tank at the edge of surface so you can reach good angle for your vertical autoaim to highlight enemy, usually my experience is that with hover hulls this is way more safer to do than with track hulls. 

100% agree. To me, there is no way to "balance" this properly. Strafing alone is a big enough advantage for obvious reasons. And the fact that the hulls are leaner in the front and back instead of the other way around (although that will look ugly AF) makes their hitboxes practically 1 weight class smaller when fighting face to face. And hell, they are hard to hit.

 

Though I disagree Crusader alone is the issue. In fact, I think its OD is trash, even with the recent "buff". It looks smaller because most of the time we are fighting hovering hulls face to face, instead of sideways, and that smaller hitbox isn't unique to Crusaders but hovering hulls in general.

 

On 1/28/2025 at 4:39 PM, Nuclear said:

The reason why the Crusader is better (or lets call it the most OP hull) is because its control.

Meanwhile the hopper and paladin controlled by the hull's position, the crusader and ares controlled by the camera position which makes it much easier to play with it.

What do you mean by "hull position" and "camera position"? I can't see any differences when controlling all the mentioned hulls

Edited January 31 by Cleric

[Wry 93]

On 1/29/2025 at 8:07 PM, Tekken8 said:

in fact crusader an paladin hitbox  is almost same and its rectangle.   

 Just to clarify the point I mentioned, the hitbox of hovering hulls is not related to it. Meaning hovering hulls' hitbox is actually 1:1 to their visual shape/volume which is the same for tracked hulls. So the autoaim mechanism of the game engine will detect their whole visual shape as hitbox (Crusader, Paladin). That is why I said physical shape instead of hitbox (described as Physical shape/volume when it is an interaction with objects/obstacles created by the game engine). But the desync of hovering hulls' visual shape happens with any obstacle created by the game engine (Crusader, Paladin). Which gives them huge maneuverability advantage over tracked hulls, since tracked hulls hitbox is 1:1 to their visual shape as well as the physical shape, which is the standard in any game design. So Crusader's hitbox is not the same as Paladin's hitbox but rather noticeably smaller, which is of course an advantage for Crusader over any hull in the game, since the compactness of it makes its hitbox small while having an even smaller physical shape for maneuverability, while being 3000HP with faster acceleration than other medium hulls.

[Nuclear 126]

On 1/28/2025 at 9:54 AM, Wry said:

Shape and other parameters I mentioned have everything to do with it. It is better and easier to drive Crusader because of its small shape, it means that it wont hit obstacles that you would hit with another hull. Driving small cars is always easier than driving big ones. Controlling a 3m of volume is always easier than controlling a 4m or 5m of volume. Therefore, Crusader has smoother/better experience to control/drive. 

This is without talking about the benefit of having smaller hitbox which is crucial in any kind of design in competitive games, while being a 3000HP hull. Crusader literally have less length than hopper the light hull.

I've checked both the crusader and paladins hitbox and shape, and it's basically same. There's maybe a minor difference but its hardly noticeable.

It doesn't seen that you have a lot of experience with hovering hulls (based on your profile), but I would suggest to try out the paladin and crusader and you will see, that easier to drive the crusader because it controlled by camera position, meanwhile the paladin controlled by hull position as I mentioned before.

 

On 1/31/2025 at 1:40 PM, Cleric said:

What do you mean by "hull position" and "camera position"? I can't see any differences when controlling all the mentioned hulls

If you play with crusader and you press the forward button (usually W), it always goes to the direction where your camera is, meanwhile the paladin moves based on the hull's position while turns based on the camera.

[Wry 93]

On 1/31/2025 at 9:06 PM, Nuclear said:

I've checked both the crusader and paladins hitbox and shape, and it's basically same. There's maybe a minor difference but its hardly noticeable.

 

 Can you provide an evidence that supports your claim?

On 1/31/2025 at 9:06 PM, Nuclear said:

It doesn't seen that you have a lot of experience with hovering hulls (based on your profile)

Experience is irrelevant here, because the whole topic is not related or affected by subjective points such as yours, but rather only objective points based on numbers and in-game facts.

Edited January 31 by Wry

[Nuclear 126]

On 1/31/2025 at 8:50 PM, Wry said:

 Can you provide an evidence that supports your claim?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04xrlL-zbQM

On 1/31/2025 at 8:50 PM, Wry said:

Experience is irrelevant here, because the whole topic is not related or affected by subjective points such as yours, but rather only objective points based on numbers and in-game facts.

What I said, I said it based on in-game facts. For me, it's clear that the driving differences between the crusader and paladin are due to the different control mechanism as I mentioned couple times and the shape has nothing to do with it.

[Venerable 2,967]

crusader is a flawed design? are you sure?
bro it's not a design, it's an abomination.

 

crusader is a flaw.

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

On 1/29/2025 at 8:13 AM, Wry said:

If we bring someone who has no knwledge about light or medium hulls, but we explained to him that based on the volume of the tank you can judge whether it is a light one or a medium one, and by looking at each tank side profile (just take screenshot of each one in the garage and compare). Now, after we tell him that one of the two tanks (Hopper and Crusader) is a medium hull and the other one is a light hull, I bet he wont be able to tell the difference between Hopper and Crusader. Of course you can argue about other sides and the mass/weight (in-game garage it is mass but in wiki it is weight), but this is not the point, the point is a medium sized hull should be a medium sized hull with a clear increase in size in comparison to light hulls. It is not called a medium hull or light hull based on just speed but also the volume, because size/volume affects the speed of it. It is common sense

I honestly have no clue how you can look at both Crusader and Hopper and conclude that Crusader is the light hull. Hopper literally looks like the floating tank version of a mosquito.  

[Acecaddy 40]

not really that  broken
it has to compensate for the not-so-good overdrive anyway

[Gabe2607 215]

On 1/27/2025 at 12:07 PM, Wry said:

... while being harder to hit plus the 3000HP. It has higher power (900) than Hopper (800) ...

Why would you believe those numbers at all? They are coming from the same game who says there is no lag, there are no hackers, etc. etc.

[Positive 1,136]

On 2/2/2025 at 5:35 AM, Gabe2607 said:

Why would you believe those numbers at all? They are coming from the same game who says there is no lag, there are no hackers, etc. etc.

First of all, on one is denying those things that you mention. Tanki openly acknowledged server issues multiple times. 
And at some point, we all rely on organizations and their work, otherwise it's just becomes opinion based chaos, right? Also, these are hard numbers, so you can test it out yourself. If you really believe the stats are incorrect, why don't you create a video and prove it instead of dismissing them?